by SpaceX said Thursday that its Starship spacecraft broke up during a flight intended to test the megarocket’s capabilities.
The rocket system’s upper stage appears to have disintegrated somewhere over the Gulf of Mexico or possibly the Caribbean Sea. Shortly after SpaceX said it had lost contact with the spacecraft, videos emerged on social media showing debris streaming across the sky.
Elon Musk, founder and CEO of SpaceX, shared a video of the debris on X and wrote: “Success is uncertain, but entertainment is guaranteed!”
No one was aboard the spacecraft, which is still being tested for future missions to the moon and beyond.
SpaceX’s seventh Starship test flight got off to a smooth start: The rocket lifted off and its booster landed intact at the company’s Starbase launch site near Brownsville, Texas.
Problems began shortly afterward when SpaceX lost contact with the spacecraft about nine minutes after launch. Kate Tice, SpaceX’s senior manager of quality systems engineering, said the company lost the ship, and SpaceX wrote on X that a “rapid, unscheduled dismantling” occurred.
The Federal Aviation Administration said Thursday that it was “aware that an anomaly occurred during SpaceX’s Starship Flight 7 mission” and that the agency was “evaluating the matter and will provide an updated statement.”
A SpaceX video released Thursday showed that Starship’s planned trajectory would be from the southern tip of Texas, across the Gulf of Mexico and the Yucatan Peninsula, then east near Cuba and across the Atlantic Ocean. If the flight had gone as planned, the ship would ultimately have sunk in the Indian Ocean.
At 400 feet tall, Starship is the most powerful rocket ever developed. The rocket consists of two parts: a first stage booster, known as Super Heavy, and the upper stage Starship spacecraft.
The system is expected to play a critical role in NASA’s efforts to return to the moon. The agency selected SpaceX to carry astronauts to the lunar surface during NASA’s planned Artemis III mission, scheduled to launch in 2027. Musk also said Starship could be used for future missions to Mars.
Accidents are not uncommon when testing new rockets and spacecraft. SpaceX’s first attempt to launch Starship in 2023 ended in a fiery explosion minutes after liftoff. The incident triggered a months-long security review and prompted an investigation into the environmental impact of the missile launch from the Gulf Coast of South Texas.
This article was originally published on NBCNews.com
